Naval Gaming

[AndyHall]

There's been some interest in other threads on CWT in a variety of computer/video games related to the Civil War. With that in mind, this will be a thread where members can discuss naval-themed games, whether computer games, miniatures, or board games.

Gaming is for fun, but it often also presents a learning opportunity. A well-designed tactical or strategic game can give the player insight into the subject that sometimes doesn't come through clearly in more traditional sources and accounts. Sometimes we might ask, "why did they do so-and so," when a carefully crafted game simulation might make that answer perfectly clear.

So this thread will be a place to post about the Civil War-era naval games, in all their various permutations. Game reviews, scenarios, after action reports, and game design discussions are all welcome.

________
The Federal naval attack on Fort Sumter, via the Edinburgh-Orkneys Wargames Journal, April 2015.

 

[huskerblitz]

The only one I've heard of is Ironclads and Ironclads II.

 

[AndyHall]

The Danish squadron (upper left) turns to intercept the Austrians (lower right).

Sunday afternoon the group I game with fought out a scenario based on the Battle of Heligoland in May 1864. The action was fought between the Danish fleet and a squadron of Austrian ships, acting on behalf of their Prussian allies, with three ships to a side. The real battle essentially ended in a draw, with both sides (of course) later claiming victory. The battle is famous for allegedly being the last major action that did not involve armored warships. It's interesting from the perspective of the American Civil War because it's a good example of what could happen when traditional wooden ships faced modern, heavy rifled artillery and exploding shells.

For this scenario we used the old Yaquinto game Ironclads (1979), along with its expansion set that brings in non-US ships and scenarios. Ironclads leans heavily toward the simulation end of the spectrum; it's definitely not a beer-and-pretzels game. on Sunday there were six of us playing, with our host acting as game master, navigating the myriad charts and tables required in keeping track of the detailed bookkeeping. In Ironclads, every single shot is tracked and damage accounted for; the six of us would all be considered novice players, so we were slow, but even so it took us four hours or more to get to the middle of turn seven. Ironclads is a good example of tactical game design as it was in the late 1970s, when there was no end to the amount of fine-grained detail that designers tried to shoehorn into their games, even if the final product was danm near unplayable (e.g., Air War).

Every turn included a vigorous discussion about firing arcs. Every. Single. Turn.

With six of us playing, each player commanded one ship. Mine was the Austrian screw frigate Radetsky, second in the Austrian line. The Danish ships were bigger and more heavily armed than the Austrians, but more important, they had heavy guns that could outrange the Austrians. My teammates and I recognized that our only chance was to get in close, where we could use the small, 30-pounder smoothbore guns that comprised most of our armament. (In the game, the Danish screw frigate Jylland is entirely fitted with 6- and 8-inch rifles, with three- or four times the range of the craptastic Austrian 30-pounders.) It didn't go well for the Austrians; the flagship, Schwarzenberg, was set afire early in the action and I got pummeled in Radestky as I tried to close the range to the Danish line. Radestky came under fire from all three Danish ships, and was very quickly reduced to a floating wreck in the space of just three turns -- which represents maybe ten minutes of real time. One lucky shot took out my steam plant, shutting down the propulsion, and in the next turn my steering was disabled, leaving Radetsky dead in a water and on fire, surrounded by Danish ships at close range. We were getting beat so badly that my friend playing the admiral quipped to our host, "if you ever run this scenario again, you need to give the Austrians a safe word."

My ship, the screw frigate Radetsky (center), dead in the water and burning furiously. This will not end well.

While this recreation of the Battle of Heligoland was not particularly fun for those of us playing the Austrian side, it did provide some insight into how devastating naval artillery had become over the preceding few decades, and in particular the deadly combination of rifled artillery and explosive shells when used against unarmored, traditional wooden warships. if this had been a real fight, it would have been a bloodbath, with both of the larger Austrian ships destroyed in short order and the third, a small paddle steamer, having to make a run for it.

Ironclads is a solid game, but it's also a high-friction design that wears out the players pretty quickly, given the necessity of cross-referencing eleventy-four different tables every time a ship fires a gun. It would be hard to imagine fighting out a big action like the Battle of Mobile Bay using this game, although I know it has been done many times. On the plus side, for the naval buff it includes all sorts of granular detail that is appealing. I think we may do another Ironclads game soon, although someone else can play the Austrians next time.

 

[rpkennedy]

I'm much more familiar with the Age of Sail computer game and the modern Fleet series of boardgames but Ironclads looks interesting.

Ryan

 

[galveston bay]

way way back in 1980 at a wargaming convention (Warcon 80 at Texas A& M) I got to witness a large team play another large team using "Ironclad" rules and miniatures. I don't remember the battle, but it involved a couple of monitors, a couple of sloops, and 3-4 gunboats on the Union side, and several gunboats and a couple of casemate ironclads on the Confederate side.

It was interesting to watch, but I only got to witness a couple of turns before I had to leave to go play my round of "Panzer Blitz"

Neat game. I never owned it but a friend of mine did, and we played a couple of small scenarios with gunboats to learn the rules. Then his house burned down and so did his games. (he was unharmed) so never played again.

I would love to see a computer version of it

 

[AndyHall]

There is a title Ironclads II available on Steam, that seems to have gotten mixed reviews. I haven't played it, but want to know more about it.

 

[AndyHall]

I'm much more familiar with the Age of Sail computer game and the modern Fleet series of books but Ironclads looks interesting.

For later periods, I enjoy Steam and Iron: The Great War at Sea and the Russo-Japanese War, both from Naval Warfare Simulations. The graphics are straight out of 1995, but it's extremely granular in it detail.

One of the things I like very much about these NWS games is that they generate a butt-ton of data, that cane be used (if one is so inclined) to reconstruct a minute-by-minute account of the action, with detailed logs and track charts of all the vessels involved. For example, here's a track chart after re-fighting Tsushima (Japanese in red, Russians in blue). The player comes away with a feeling that it was a real-world action, not a computer game. I would LOVE to see the NWS game model ported over to the ironclad period.

 

[thomas aagaard]

View attachment 121227
The Danish squadron (upper left) turns to intercept the Austrians (lower right).

Sunday afternoon the group I game with fought out a scenario based on the Battle of Heligoland in May 1864. The action was fought between the Danish fleet and a squadron of Austrian ships, acting on behalf of their Prussian allies, with three ships to a side. The real battle essentially ended in a draw, with both sides (of course) later claiming victory. The battle is famous for allegedly being the last major action that did not involve armored warships. It's interesting from the perspective of the American Civil War because it's a good example of what could happen when traditional wooden ships faced modern, heavy rifled artillery and exploding shells.

Was not a draw. If you look into the damage suffered by the two sides and the fact that the Austrians was forced to flee into neutral British waters makes it a clear danish victory.
And it not been for that area, and a lucky hit to the Jylland slowing it down, Schwarzenberg would most likely have been forced to strike it colors.
And this is what makes it a good day for the Austrians. The first time their navy really fought a successful fight... and that against a nation that was a well known for its good navy.

And it is clear that the stats you have for the danish ships are not historical.
The danes did have rifled guns... but must was still smoothbores.
( Jylland had 32x 30 pdr as the main battery. And 8x 18 pdr. rifled and 4x 12 pdr. rifled cannon)
Niels Juel had 30x 30 pdr. and 12x 18 pdr. rifled cannon;
And Heimdal had 14x 30 pdr.)


The battle of Lissa in 1866 show that modern artillery was not that effective in the end., During that battle the steam ship of the line Kaiser survived fighting a number of ironclads at point blank range... despite being an obsolete wooden ship.

 

[rpkennedy]

For later periods, I enjoy Steam and Iron: The Great War at Sea and the Russo-Japanese War, both from Naval Warfare Simulations. The graphics are straight out of 1995, but it's extremely granular in it detail.

I've also seen a computer simulation of the Harpoon game as well. It looks really interesting but was awfully pricey (around $80 or so for the base software).

I've seen the Steam and Iron game but just haven't pulled the trigger on it.

Ryan

 

[Yankeedave]

Nice to meet other gamers!

 

[Yankeedave]

Presently playing a john tiller app. Played sid mier's (typo) gettysburg and antietam to death. Talon soft came out with a series of excellent p.c. games.
too many board games to mention.
Always found that wargaming kinda shakes theb.s. out of things. great learning tool. You find out real quick why napoleon's maxims are maxims.

 

[AndyHall]

Talonsoft's old Age of Sail was a decent game, back when there were virtually no titles to compete. Naval Action, still in development but available in early release on Steam, looks impressive.

 

[JohnW.]

I personally like the old school Avalon Hill board games.

 

[Story]

1. Does this count?
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/76207/blockade-runner
Blockade Runner is a resource trading game in the Euro style, but with a dash of danger. In Blockade Runner, players take on the roles of entrepreneurs attempting to make the most money by shipping cargo in and out of the South during the American Civil War. Positioning is achieved by competing with each other for access to commodities, top market prices, and newly built ships. Hard decisions include whether to play safely to keep ships afloat or take potentially profitable risks. The crux of the play is hinged upon whether to bring in vital war goods, which reduce the intensity of the growing blockade, or more profitable black market goods. This enables a potential for cooperation, but competition is the heart of the game.
publisher blurb.

2. For inspiration's sake, I'll point out this message board found elsewhere on the interwebz
Ironclads (1862-1889)
http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/topics.mv?id=132

 

[AndyHall]

1. Does this count?
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/76207/blockade-runner

You bet that counts. Played that one, too, and liked it -- it's highly abstracted, but it captures the key features of the blockade-running business quite well. Here is my post about it from last year:
_________

Image by Daniel Danzer, via BoardGameGeek.

Recently I had the opportunity to play a game of Blockade Runner, a board game published by Numbskull Games in 2010. In Blockade Runner, 2-6 players take on the role of blockade-running merchants, building fleets of runners, carrying cargoes between Confederate and neutral ports, evading the Federal blockade, and generally scrambling to make a big profit. The winner at the end of the five year-long turns is the player with the largest combined value of shipping plus his cash-in-hand. Importantly, Blockade Runner shouldn't really be considered a war game; although it's set during the conflict of 1861-65, the point of the game as in real-life Civil War blockade-running is to rake in the cash. We had a full complement of six players for our game, only three of whom might be considered CW buffs. Three of us, myself included, had not played the game before. You can read a detailed description of the game here.

Each player starts out with two ships and a small amount of money in 1861. Each turn, a player can perform four (or sometimes five) separate actions, which might consist of buying and loading cargo, moving one's ships on the board, selling and unloading cargo, or using one of his action cards. Each player gets three cards, that are replaced with new ones as they're used, that add much of the flavor to the game. There are cards that improve the defenses of a specific Confederate port, provide insurance to cover the loss of a captured runner, or put a pilot on board a runner, that increases that ship's movement ability.

Each ship can carry one, two or three units of cargo, although the larger vessels can only be obtained during the course of the game when the player accumulates enough cash to purchase one. Each port, Confederate and neutral, begins each turn with a limited amount of cargo available for loading -- cotton and tobacco in the Confederacy, and war materiel and "black market good" in the neutral ports. (This last designation of "black market goods" is of great annoyance; in reality, there was nothing remotely secret or clandestine about the civilian goods brought in through the blockade, right to the end of the war.)

These four commodities are handled rather ingeniously in the game. Although players can purchase and load cargoes at a fixed price throughout the entire game, there is a limit on how much can be had in each port, especially in the Confederacy, where no port contains more than three units -- the capacity of a single, large runner. Players finding themselves in a Confederate port with insufficient cotton or tobacco to load can pay extra to have it shipped from inland areas by rail, but that eats into the profits on the other end of the trip. Once arriving at the player's destination, the cargo can usually be sold at a tidy profit, but the exact price is determined by how many units of that particular cargo have been landed previously in that turn. The price drops steadily as more and more of a given commodity is landed and floods the market. In the game we played, the sale price of cotton and tobacco dropped steadily over the course of the game, leaving black market civilian goods landed in Confederate ports as the only commodity that maintained its price. Rather ingeniously, the designers placed two restrictions on inbound cargoes, that both improve gameplay and the historicity of the game -- (1) players carrying cargoes into the Confederacy must bring in as many units of war materiel as civilian goods, or pay a steep fine, and (2) war materiel is free to load in a neutral port, but the player only receives a small fee for transporting it into a Confederate port.

Three runners ready to load in Havana. Image by Daniel Danzer, via BoardGameGeek.

Because the United States' ever-tightening blockade of the Confederacy is handled automatically, with a strong element of randomness, there can be some distinctly unhistorical events in the game. For example, during the first turn, representing 1861, the Navy put all of its blockading forces in the Gulf of Mexico, leaving the Atlantic seaboard essentially wide open for blockade running. The city of Houston fell to the Yankees in (IIRC) 1862, but Galveston remained open throughout the war. Later in the game, the United States deployed its one roving roving squadron for two turns (years) in a row at Key West. While Key West was an important operational base during the conflict, in game terms it's useless as a deployment point because the blockade runners generally will either operate in the Gulf to the west, or in the Atlantic to the east, without transiting between those two regions. New Orleans remained open to runners from Cuba through the end of the war in 1865.

But the things that Blockade Runner gets wrong (or just odd) are insignificant compared to what it gets right, which is the big picture. The game is necessarily highly abstracted, but the structure and mechanics of it work very well in recreating the objectives and challenges that faced those who entered this risky venture. One of the marks of a well-designed game is that its structure gently pushes players into making the same sort of analyses that their historical counterparts did. This is exactly what happened when we played Blockade Runner; as the war dragged on the price of both cotton and tobacco dropped as players brought out increasingly large cargoes, while the price of civilian goods brought into the Confederacy remained high. This prompted players to focus solely on bringing in those cargoes, calculating that even with the hefty fine it was the only way to make a significant profit. Players began running bigger risks as the game progressed inexorably to the end of the war, scrambling to squeeze out that last bit of profit before the end of the 1865 turn. The game also captures well the chance of real economic catastrophe that stalked real blockade runners. The player in our game who was the most aggressive, buying a new ship the moment he had sufficient cash in hand in the second turn, led through the whole game until the final turn, when his largest ship was captured. As I recall that single loss, ship and cargo, amounted to around $80,000. He wasn't entirely wiped out, but he went from a commanding lead at the beginning of the turn to finishing it (and the game) in a distant third place, the result of the roll of a single, eight-sided die. C'est la guerre, ya'll.

Our game took about three hours, not including set-up time; it would have gone a little faster if all of us had been experienced players. There's also a good bit of what our generous host referred to as AP -- "analysis paralysis" -- that causes a delay while players try and figure out their best course of action. Still, it's great fun and gives players a good sense of how real blockade-running during the Civil War was carried out. If you ever get a chance to play, I recommend it.​

 

[AndyHall]

I personally like the old school Avalon Hill board games.

There are some classics that have stood the test of time. I've played or watched several games where the strategic/search phase is carried out using AH's Jutland or Bismarck, and then the players switch to a completely different rule set to fight out the resulting tactical encounters.

The current, most hard-core board game for the Age of Sail, Close Action, was developed by Mark Campbell as a successor to AH's Wooden Ships & Iron Men, and is very similar in basic form and mechanics to that pioneering game. Close Action has been described as "WS&IM done right," which is as much homage to the original game as it is critique.

 

[Tennessee_Mountainman]

Have you ever heard of Naval Action? It's in alpha but it takes place in the Napoleonic Era. Very intriguing!

 

[AndyHall]

Have you ever heard of Naval Action? It's in alpha but it takes place in the Napoleonic Era. Very intriguing!

Yes, I'm gradually working myself up to pulling the trigger on that one.

 

[rebelatsea]

A good friend of mine, Bob Walker and I spent months researching and writing "The Devil at the Helm" set of rules. It was so complicated I think it only went through on print run. Allied to a demanding full time job and heavy involvement in a heritage railway it put me of playing completely. I think the only surviving bit is the set of gun tables which I put up on here some time ago, and which I try to update periodically.
For our time period I much prefer the simpler sets of rules.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Talonsoft's old Age of Sail was a decent game, back when there were virtually no titles to compete. Naval Action, still in development but available in early release on Steam, looks impressive.

I loved Age of Sail. They were intending to do an Age of Ironclads, too, but it never got done. Sigh.